the role of tourism in natural resource management in the okavango ...

stated that these facilities were causing damage associated with the use of motor
boats, setting fires in areas of the Delta to attract game, and polluting the Okavango
waters through poor and insufficient waste management practices.
Most of the 39 interviewees who stated that tourism was not having a negative
impact on the Okavango regard the tourism industry as being the economic
backbone of the area, rather than being a destructive force. According to Mbaiwa
(2002), most of the safari workers in the Okavango Delta also associate tourism
development with positive socio-economic benefits rather than with negative
environmental impacts. However, according to the World Commission on
Environment and Development (WCED), emphasis on economic benefits at the
expense of environmental factors, does not constitute sustainable development.
Sustainable development promotes economic development that ensures that
environmental conservation is taken into consideration (WECD, 1987).
Despite the conflicting views by tourism industry employees on the impacts of
tourism development on the Okavango Delta's environment, an increasing number
of negative tourism impacts are becoming visible with the growth of the Delta's
tourism industry. Additionally, according to key informants in the Department of
Wildlife and National Parks, Conservation International, the Harry Oppenheimer
Okavango Research Centre, Department of Agricultural Research, and Department
of Tourism, in Maun, the growth of the Okavango Delta's tourism industry, the
increase in tourist numbers in the region and the development of associated
infrastructure, is having increasingly negative impacts upon the area's environment
and sensitive ecology.
According to personal interviews conducted with Lovemore Sola, Biodiversity
Corridor Manager at Conservation International (Cl) in Maun, Patricia Chilume, from
the Department of Tourism in Maun, and Joseph Mbaiwa, Tourism Research Fellow
at the Harry Oppenheimer Okavango Research Centre in Maun, there are a number
of serious tourism impacts coming to the fore in the Okavango Delta. Also, as the
industry is still relatively new, many of the tourism facilities are in extremely remote
areas of the Delta. Due to the lack of manpower and resources of the various
government departments tasked with monitoring and managing tourism in the area,
352